Genre/Style: Fantasy Game Music
Creative Vision for the Track:
My end goal is to write the in-game music that will be used in the Argonia region of the Beyond Skyrim game mod. To prepare myself for that and organize all of the musical ideas I am writing a full musical suite called “Song of Argonia” that will musically tell the story of the history of Tamriel from the creation of the world until “present day” when Skyrim takes place. The suite will end up being around 15 tracks. This is the first track, “The Aedra Form The World.” It represents the first part of the Dawn Era.
In this one I’m beginning to put together some motifs that will be used later in the suite, and to incorporate some of Jeremy Soule’s themes and mix them with my own. In my musical map various key groups and concepts have themes, some have specific instruments, notes, and chords. In this track Argonia’s theme of the land gets developed as the land is being created. It is most explicitly stated at the very end. The land/swamp of Argonia is represented by a bass clarinet, sometimes paired with xiao flute or a yalli tambur.
Argonian music is going to be heavy on the woodwinds and light on the brass. In this suite, brass will mostly represent Men and Elves and their encroachment into Black Marsh.
Composition Details (Tempo, Key, Main Chords etc):
Tempo starts out slow, around 50. For the middle sections it’s about 117. And the end section is 96.
Key is Dm. Other main chords are C, Bb, F, A, Am. The motif of Argonia in this track can be condensed into a Dm7 add 9 chord.
Main Instruments used:
Most of the main instruments are from BBCSO, EastWest Hollywood Orchestra, EastWest Stormdrum, and ProjectSam.
Solo instruments include Joshua Bell Violin, Tina Guo Cello, Blakus Cello, 8Dio Bass Clarinet, Alpine Project English Horn, EastWest Ra Yalli tambur, DecentSampler Slinky Violin.
Most of the sound design type samples from the intro came from either Spitfire LABS or Pianobook.
Some of the more unusual instruments used include a Hurdy Gurdy and Yalli Tambur from Ra, a Xiao Flute from Strezov Sampling, a Didgeridoo, a Throat Singing vocal from SilenceAndOtherSound’s Omen, some Aboriginal Percussion from EastWest Stormdrum, some natural percussion sounds from Orchestral Tools’ Arbos, some metal shelves played with a bow from Pianobook.
To see more about the Beyond Skyrim Project click this link: